Director, Institute for Australian and Chinese Arts and Culture

Professor Jing Han

Professor Jing Han is the Director of Institute for Australia and Chinese Arts and Culture (IAC) at Western Sydney University. Australia is home to more than one million people of Chinese descent with a wide range of identities, life histories, views and places of origin. IAC focuses on the development of deeper ties with centuries-old and emerging Chinese arts and culture in Australian context forged through an open, intellectual and dynamic engagement with arts and culture institutions, researchers and practitioners in China, Australia and around the world, including a new generation of artists and writers of Chinese heritage. Jing is also responsible for producing art exhibitions at IAC art space, featuring both well-established and emerging Chinese Australian contemporary artists.

Jing has a PhD in English literature from the University of Sydney. She joined SBS TV Australia in 1996 and served as the Chief Subtitler and Head of the SBS Subtitling Department till 2019. Over the last 23 years, Jing has subtitled over 300 Chinese films and was the leading subtitler of the Chinese TV show If You Are The One, the longest showing non-English series in Australia. In 2018, in recognition of her outstanding contributions in the field of  cultural exchange, she was included in the 45 Stories published by the Australian government to commemorate the 45th anniversary of Australia and China diplomatic relation.

Jing is a leading expert in translating Chinese culture, intercultural communication, audiovisual translation and media accessibility. She is highly regarded for her significant and original contributions to the practice and teaching in the field. Jing is also known for her strong leadership and intercultural competence.

Jing joined Western Sydney University in 2006 and has been a key faculty member in the WSU flagship program Translation and Interpreting at the School of Humanities and Communication Arts. She has been teaching literary translation and audiovisual translation to postgraduate students and supervising PhD candidates. Being an internationally recognised expert in subtitling and translation studies, Jing has been invited to give lectures at over 30 universities in mainland China, Taiwan, Europe and Australia. She is also a literary translator,  having translated a modern Chinese classic Educated Youth by multi-award winning author Ye Xin into English, published by Giramondo Publishing in 2016 and the Miles Franklin Award winning novel Too Much Lip by Melissa Lucashenko into Chinese, published by China Writers Publishing House in 2022.